Helios Nexus Energy Business Plan › Section 9 › Funding Structure & Implementation Roadmap

9.1 Capital requirement and funding stack

The R28.8 billion programme is funded by a diversified stack blending
founder and strategic equity, infrastructure-fund and DFI capital, a
dedicated green bond, and senior project-finance debt. The
equity-weighted structure reflects the development-stage risk profile
and the choice to keep gearing moderate through the build, while the
green bond anchors the platform’s ESG financing credentials.

9.2 Implementation roadmap

The programme runs over ten years, phased around grid access, the
trading-licence framework and generation lease-up rather than a fixed
calendar. Critical-path items are grid-connection applications (which
gate generation and revenue), the trading licence and VWP onboarding
(which gate the trading division), and the project financial closes.

9.3 Milestones and dependencies

9.4 Delivery discipline and the trading-regulation pathway

Execution risk concentrates in grid access and the trading-regulatory
framework. The programme runs under formal stage-gates — no generation
project advances to construction without secured grid connection and
committed offtake, and the trading division scales only as the NERSA
Trading Rules and VWP access crystallise. This dual discipline is the
direct response to the two binding constraints identified throughout the
Plan.

• Grid before capital. No major generation capital
  is committed without a secured connection path — the discipline that
  protects against stranded assets in a grid-constrained market.
• Regulation-paced trading. The trading and
  wheeling division scales in step with NERSA’s Trading Rules and Eskom’s
  VWP access, rather than assuming a framework that does not yet fully
  exist; owned generation anchors revenue in the interim.
• Ring-fence and green-label. Each project SPV
  carries its own financing and completion support; the green bond is
  ring-fenced to eligible assets with independent use-of-proceeds
  verification.

9.5 Precedent structures and market validation

The structure and valuation basis are validated by recent South
African market activity. REIPPPP has mobilised over R250 billion of
private investment under standardised, government-backed 20-year PPAs
with no awarded project having failed; corporate PPA and wheeling
volumes are growing rapidly; a cohort of well-capitalised traders has
emerged; and green bonds and DFI capital are actively funding African
renewables.

The financing ask is therefore well-precedented: generation SPV
project debt against contracted PPA revenue, infrastructure- and
DFI-anchored equity, a green-bond tranche for eligible assets, and an
exit into a deep pool of infrastructure and strategic buyers. The
distinctive features are the integrated five-division platform and the
disciplined, grid- and regulation-paced phasing — not novelty of
structure.

9.6 Capital-structure optimisation and green financing

The initial 62:38 equity-to-debt structure is deliberately moderate
for a development-stage platform, but it is not the intended steady
state. As each generation and storage asset stabilises — reaching
commercial operation with contracted PPA cash flows — its risk profile
falls sharply, supporting materially higher gearing. The Plan therefore
contemplates a phased re-leveraging and green-bond expansion:
refinancing stabilised assets at 65–75% gearing (the level REIPPPP
projects routinely achieve), releasing equity for redeployment into
later phases or distribution.

The green-bond dimension is central. Because the platform is a
pure-play clean-energy asset, it can access the growing green- and
sustainability-linked bond market at a pricing benefit (a modest
“greenium”) and with a deep, mandate-driven investor base. Expanding
green-bond issuance as assets stabilise both lowers the blended cost of
capital and reinforces the ESG positioning that anchors the exit thesis.
Modelling the base case at moderate gearing is prudent and understates
the equity return available through disciplined re-leveraging — an
upside the Plan flags for investors and lenders to structure around.

9.7 Target investors and capital-raising strategy

The raise is sequenced to match investor mandates to risk phases.
Development-stage and construction capital is anchored by founder,
strategic and DFI investors able to underwrite build risk;
infrastructure and pension funds enter as assets stabilise and the
profile becomes annuity-like; green-bond investors fund eligible
renewable assets; and senior lenders provide project debt against
contracted PPA revenue.

The DFI role is pivotal in the early phases: beyond capital, DFI
participation brings governance standards, blended-finance instruments
and a catalytic signalling effect that de-risks commercial and
infrastructure-fund capital. The platform’s climate impact — over 18 Mt
of CO₂ avoided annually — positions it strongly for this pool, bridging
the development-stage risk premium until contracted cash flows attract
lower-cost infrastructure and green-bond capital.

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